Today, yesterday’s need to connect with distant others grew more ferocious. We have the means to communicate such as no humans before have imagined, and we can do it instantly during a crisis that is watched in ways no humans before have done. So, I treated it as a moral obligation to text and write whoever was on my mind. People I love but normally wouldn’t want to bother. I bothered them, asked how they are and “please stay well and in touch” and signed off with “hugs”, “abbracci”, and “love”. Because yes, that’s how I feel, and what purpose can there possibly be in pretending otherwise?
A friend I’ve probably spent less time with than I have with my dentist (in fact, you can scratch the “probably”) but who is dear just the same, responded that he had caught a flu, but nothing serious, twenty-four hour bug. My hair stood on end (metaphorically – my hair only actually does that early in the morning). Here, he would have already been tested, his condition assessed, precautions taken. I told him that. It felt like I was being invasive. Also felt that I may be proposing a fantasy. Are there kits available where he lives, does he qualify if there are, could he afford the test? I read what is and what is not going on in the States, but I don’t really know what it all means on the ground.
Another friend who lives in Queens – reported to be the New York City borough hardest hit by the virus – answered that he was on his way into town for work. (New Yorkers quaintly refer to Manhattan as “town”. Go figure.) I wanted to cover him with a protective coating, a cape of gold.
I just messaged another friend of importance, someone else my dentist beats out for quality time spent. Because his office is in Manhattan, I’d not given him much thought. This afternoon, I suddenly remembered that he lives in Westchester County which was hit hard and early. This person is distant enough from my social circle that he may not have my number in his phone, so I signed my name. He may find it strange even to hear from me, but he’s a fine and generous fellow, and I’m concerned.
Express my concern! Whoever it is comes into my thoughts, or into my life. I never know why they appear in that manner or at that moment, my contact may be important in ways I cannot anticipate.
It makes a difference where you have spent the last two weeks in how vociferous (via text, email, call) you become. People from abroad have been contacting their friends in Italy because we have been perceived to be residing in the monster’s belly. We still are, but there is apparently no shortage of bellies that belong to this monster. And by now we know the drill, and it’s coming your way, and I, for one, want to know how you’re handling it. Seriously, I hope. Take it with good humor, a smile if you can, and as much kindness and patience and forbearance as you’re able to muster, but take not a bit of it casually. And please, please, stay well. Bad enough that people I felt I knew but didn’t, like Terrance McNally, have been taken, I want my friends (and everyone’s friends – impossible as that may be) to live and flourish, to not join any statistics.
The World Health Organization publishes those statistics at the end of every day. We can access them here so long as our Internet connection holds. Today there was a uptick in new cases in Italy after five days trending (though not always falling) downward. This makes me sad – for the suffering it represents, the lives that could be lost, and the dear ones that may be missed. It is also sad because the numbers are not reflecting our efforts at containment as well, today, as they seemed to be, yesterday. And maybe I’m unreasonably impatient.
Can a country that may have begun its health emergency measures a few days later than it should have, still succeed? If so, watch what we are doing, here. I want to participate in that model because we all need to know this can work. Most other places are late, too. Some seem to be treating that fact as if cavalier neglect were a virtue. Learn from us! Listen to the educated, compassionate, and caring voices among you. There are plenty of them. Don’t let the noise drown them out.
The Italian word for noise is rumore.
I read the early pages of this diary with a bit of chagrin. The person who wrote them seems so innocent. Not that I’ve hardened in the days since (quite the opposite, really) but I had the notion that with the earnest acceptance of “doing what we must do” we would, by April, come to a point where the crisis would begin to abate, even if just enough for us to transform hope into trust. I suppose it still might, we’re approaching a crucial point in containment strategy. But whenever we reach that point, it is a good thing that in this new isolation we are learning the qualities of attentiveness, simplicity, and more careful application of our energies. We may be building a new society from these bricks of purpose, without a masterplan and not knowing exactly why, but one that leads to a positive resolution. The way some of us write blog posts. The way this beautiful city was built.